Pop Conference 2025

Tori Vilches, “Young Miko’s Fashion and the Politics of Queer Identity in Latin Trap”

This paper explores the intersection of fashion, identity, and sexuality in the music of Lesbian
Latin Trap/Urbano artist, Young Miko. Fashion has long been an essential medium for self-
expression, but in genres like reggaeton and trap, the portrayal of women often emphasizes
colonial beauty standards. Building on the work of Clarke and Turner (2007) and Schofield and
Schmidt (2005) on queer identity and fashion, as well as Penney’s (2012) study of baggy
clothing in queer hip-hop culture, this research extends the discussion to Latin Trap. Meave
Avila (2021) argues that in Reggaeton music videos, women’s bodies not only enhance financial
gain but also symbolize men’s social power and status. This concept is complicated by Miko’s
positioning within the genre, as she subverts these norms, embodying traditional masculinity
through baggy tracksuits, chains, and placement in front of cars while simultaneously embracing
femininity through makeup, hair, and nails.

Young Miko’s presence in the genre makes space for queer women and their sexual experiences,
taking the traditional place that straight men have for so long. However, she could also be
embodying elements of heterosexual masculinity as a way to “fit” into male-dominated
structures – a concept highlighted by Davies (2021). In this context, we might also consider the
notion that instead of transcending the machismo stereotypes of reggaetón/Urbano/Latin trap,
Young Miko could inadvertently reinforce these values.

Through a decolonial analysis of music videos such as “Lisa,” “Classy 101,” “ID,” “8am,” and
“Castigada,” I explore the ways Young Miko explicitly navigates sexuality and identity
expression through fashion, lyrics, and vocal timbre. Ultimately, Young Miko’s fashion choices
and performance style serve as a dual-edged commentary: advancing representation for queer
sexual experiences while negotiating the gendered power dynamics of “fitting” into a genre that
traditionally uses women’s bodies as visual signifiers of social capital.

Jessica King, “I’m About to Pop Your Music Bubble: Scene Queen’s Hyper-Feminine Bimbocore
Metal Theatrics and Aesthetics v. Metal’s Misogyny”

Scene Queen lauds herself as the literal antithesis to what the misogynistic metal
scene wants to see or hear. From its origins, metal has included women primarily as objects
of heterosexual male desire and fantasy, whether referred to in objectifying lyrics, paraded as
music video props, and/or abused as groupies. The pioneering women in metal were often
reduced to sultry sirens, Xena warrior princesses, or Valkyrie vixens. Those that garnered the
most tolerance, like Warlock’s front-woman Doro Pesch, earned acceptance by adopting more
masculine dress and mannerisms during the 1980s. Then and now, for even the remotest
chance at being taken seriously, women in metal are held to higher standards of genre
knowledge and musical proficiency while needing to rely on what Deena Weinstein terms
“being metal” through masculine-coded physical markers and/or identity acts. Female metal
musicians are expected to strictly adhere to the principal sonic element of the music itself,
sheer power (i.e., volume), accompanied by extreme distortion, electric guitar and bass, riffs,
bombastic percussion, fast tempi, liminal breakdowns, and extended scream vocal techniques.
Scene Queen, however, performs an amplified parody of white, dumb blonde, hyper-feminine
2000s inspired bimbocore that unapologetically exposes and confronts the misogynistic, often
predatory, metal genre and subculture. While the hyper feminine and the Scene Queen
character herself seem at odds with metal, I argue that Scene Queen is in fact a significant
and valid inheritor of metal’s theatrical traditions, aesthetics, fashions, and antics, aligning
her with iconic bands such as KISS, Twisted Sister, GWAR, Slipknot, Ghost, and more.
Unapologetically performing the most amplified version of herself and calling out the scene’s
bad behavior are undoubtedly making the metal scene a safer, more inclusive space. Scene
Queen is more than just her music. Scene Queen is a movement.

Claire Lobenfeld, “Mother Monstro: A Semiotic Reading of Lady Gaga's Meat Dress”

Lady Gaga refuses to deny that her body—and all bodies—are fragile and fluctuating. Using the
meat dress she wore at the 2010 VMAs, I will examine Gaga’s project as a counter-narrative to
the perception of pop stars as flawless and fully able. By wearing a garment made of dead bodies
that actively decomposed on her own, she signaled to her deteriorating flesh and the universal
inevitability of death. The presentation will further investigate Gaga’s grotesque aesthetics—blood, vomit,
the hybridizing of her human body with non-human forms—as a source of beauty and pleasure, providing
catharsis for her own body in crisis. These examinations will be made through the lenses of literary criticism
(Mikhail Bahktin’s carnivalesque and lower-body stratum; Julia Kristeva’s theories of abjection) and Tobin
Siebers’s theories of aesthetics represented by embodied-difference in art and visual culture.

Moderator: AJ Kluth, Case Western Reserve University

Dianne Violeta Mausfeld, “‘Cholo Style’: Origin, Commercialization, and Appropriation of Urban Chicano Hip-Hop Fashion in Los Angeles”

Chicano rap evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s in L.A. and other urban centers in
Southern California. The predominantly male, second-generation Latino and Chicano rappers,
DJs, and producers uniquely translated their urban migratory background to Spanglish rhymes
over beats that sampled lowrider oldies, funk, and soul. The musical subculture is deeply
intertwined with Chicano gang culture as many of the artists were gang members and/or grew up
in gang infested areas which is particularly visible in the subject matters, artists’ name patterns,
and their clothing style. This so-called “cholo” style entailed baggy khakis, Nike Cortez tennis
shoes, Pendleton flannel shirts, white t-shirts, and bandanas, as well as residual elements of zoot
suit culture such as fedoras. The style was criminalized by schools and law enforcement in the
context of gang injunctions which only contributed to it becoming a signifier of Brown pride and
resistance. At the same time, the portrayal of Chicano youth as “cholos” in the media moved
between authenticity and stereotype. Over time, the meaning of certain style elements changed
through their commercialization and appropriation by non-Chicano youth of color, yet cholo
aesthetics are intrinsically linked with Chicano rap. The style has been appropriated by African
American rappers on the West Coast since at least the 1980s which has led to its popularization
and the misconception that it derived from Black culture. Thus, the style’s history and importance
for L.A. hip-hop and urban Chicano culture at large cannot be overstated.

Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Chicano rap artists and contemporaries from
2019–2023 and critical source evaluation of album artwork, music videos, lifestyle magazines, and
motion pictures, this paper aims to carve out the history, meaning, and commercialization of
urban Chicano clothing styles in L.A. hip hop and popular culture from the late 1980s until today.

Aneliza Ruiz, “Querida América: Willy Chavarria and the Echoes of Latinx Feeling”

This paper examines Willy Chavarria’s fashion show, “América,” at New York Fashion Week
and closely reads the performance of “Querida” by Yahritza y Su Esencia at the show’s opening
in addition to specific looks from Chavarria’s collection. By closely reading the lyrical and
affective qualities of the musical performance and the historical references made in the design
choices of Chavarria’s collection, I suggest that Chavarria is making specific claims about Latinx
labor, desire, and belonging in the United States. Specifically, I trace Chavarria’s designs to the
historical figure of the Pachuco/a, or Zoot Suiter, who emerged during World War II when high
numbers of Latinx youth were employed by factories to manufacture war supplies. In present
contexts, the Pachuco/a is a symbol of ethnic pride and political refusal that emphasizes the
right to beauty and belonging for Chicano and Latinx folks. I argue that Chavarria references
this figure and their style, among other working-class jobs and aesthetics inhabited by Latines,
to demonstrate the echo of calls for justice by previous generations whose feelings are still
relevant in the present. I suggest that Chavarria seeks to add to this echo not only through his
designs but also through his decision to have Yahritza y Su Esencia perform “Querida,” a song
directed at a lost lover where the singer is asking for their sadness, loneliness, and suffering to
be acknowledged. By using the metaphor of the echo, I ultimately demonstrate how these small
traces of history are mobilized in the present to negotiate feelings and continue to imagine what
liberation might look like.

Jacob Sunshine, “Contrabandas y Estampadas: Screen-Printed T-shirts and the Reproduction
of Visual Culture in the Sound Systems of Barranquilla”

Picós are the ribcage rattling outdoor sound systems that animate parties in the largely Afro-
Colombian working-class neighborhoods of Barranquilla and other parts of the Caribbean Coast
of Colombia. Though picós have acquired their reputation in part for playing exclusive, rare
vinyl records of West and Central African guitar music that the audiences on La Costa favor,
since 1967, picós have also fostered a unique visual culture centered around elaborate
paintings on the picós speaker baffles in Day-Glo paint, oftentimes featuring mythical creatures
(El Dragón), enigmatic figures found on the cover of Salsa records (El Gran Pijuan), or war
heroes (El Gran Fidel). This visual aesthetic has launched the fame of artists like William
Gutierrez and Belismath whose visual motifs, unlike the “threatening” sounds that their art
accompanies, have crossed over into elite neighborhoods and have become ubiquitous aspects
of the city’s landscape, appearing everywhere from murals to high fashion. This paper draws
from 14 months of ethnographic research and oral history interviews in Barranquilla and
Cartagena, Colombia. It focuses specifically on the presence of contraband estampados, screen-
printed T-shirts, polo shirts, baseball caps and soccer jerseys fabricated by members of the
scene in Barranquilla’s central market. Donning these t-shirts at events becomes a way for
fanatics to indicate their support for a popular picó. But local celebrities and DJs will also sport
photos of their own faces, boosting their own presence in public space. This paper explores
how this practice of fabricating estampados performs the labor of reclaiming emblems in an
unequal city. This persistent copying of images follows a similar logic to the work that
Champeta producers do in marketing unlicensed, shoddy reissues of African music. In both
cases, the farther the crude copies get from the original, the stronger the allure, and in turn the
social value ascribed to the originals.

Jose Torres, “A Phenomenology of Mexico’s Traje de Charro and its Role in Mariachi Musicality

Music is typically conceived of as solely an auditory experience, with sound perceived as
the central role in how aesthetic meaning is attached. However, in a live performance (or visual
media), a musical body possesses equal potential to generate aesthetic qualities that along with
sound amplify perceptual experience. Embodied qualities of music being are often bound up in
objects like clothing and instruments. The way a musician’s body is stylized and clothed, along
with the vocal/instrumental technical execution, constitutes a “stance relationship” to the
expressive culture of a performance (Berger 2009). In Mexico, the traje de charro (charro suit),
the symbolic attire worn by mariachi musicians, is an insignia steeped in profound images of the
charro figure who exists on two levels. First, as a historic, real participant in the nation’s history
and second, as a re-imagined caricature of nationalist popular culture. Though often conflated,
these deeply entwined dualisms in part materialize a charro ethos (Geertz), made manifest in its
garb by a “semiotic ideology” (Keane 2005:191) mediating the kinds of acted-upon objects of
the habitus (Bourdieu 1984).

Mariachi practitioners in Mexico cite respect for the charro suit as a primary authentic
trait of being “un mariachi digno” (a dignified mariachi). In a musical performance, mariachi
attire, captures the aesthetic totality of Mexico’s historic charro, construed not only by its
materiality, but also in its symbolic amalgam of associated orientations, both real and imagined.
This paper presents a phenomenology of the charro suit, illustrating its role in structuring
socialized cultural imaginari

Emmie Head, “Towards an Aesthetics of Digital Emotion: Examining Emotion in AI Music Composition Process”

“Beatoven.ai uses advanced AI music generation techniques to compose unique mood-based music to suit every part of your video or podcast,” says the slogan for royalty-free generative AI Beatoven. Beatoven, like other music-making AIs, interprets a prompt from the user based on provided key terms that include duration, style, vibe, era, and occasion. After creating a track, the user simply selects the “Create Emotion” button and changes the sonic mood of the track they have generated from a table of sixteen possible options. As generative AI technologies such as this advance, it is necessary to consider who determines what these moods (or emotions) sound like and what sonic markers characterize these determinations.

Using Beatoven as a case study, I evaluate the stylistic markers used to signify mood or emotions. Employing Sara Ahmed’s analysis of affective economies, “where feelings do not reside in subjects or objects, but are produced as effects of circulation” (Ahmed, 2004), I argue that, in its capacity to use a preexisting work as a foundation and alter components to fit a user’s expectation of a mood/emotion/style, Beatoven allows its audience to circumvent circulation and access emotion within an object – that object being the prerecorded music that provides data within which information is stored to create various emotional outputs. Since affective economies exist and since emotions are shaped by contact, an AI’s contact with the prerecorded music it is trained on and the data that alters its aesthetic and affective qualities produces its emotional capacities. As generative AIs become a quick and cheaper alternative for creators who wish to use royalty-free music, it is necessary to evaluate the types of interpretations of emotion and style that these AIs produce to intimately understand who does or does not benefit from this streamlined process of musical composition.

Caleb Herrmann, “Opulent Air: Billie Eilish’s Breath and Post-War Nostalgia”

In 2021, Billie Eilish shocked fans with a new hair color: platinum blonde, a drastic change that accompanied a more comprehensive overhaul of her wardrobe. In appearances at the Met Gala and on the cover of Vogue magazine, the singer rolled out a new celebrity persona that drew upon the post-war opulence of the 1950s/60s. With references to a cluster of iconic figures like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, Eilish reactivated a period of American hegemony, unbounded economic growth, and social security for the nation’s middle-class citizens—conditions that today have largely disappeared, especially Eilish’s Gen-Z and millennial fans. Dressed in dreamy pink ball gowns, Her gesture was both melancholic and nostalgic, holding on to a social formation that has largely disappeared.

This paper uses Eilish’s opulent, post-war nostalgia as an opportunity to explore the sonic resonances between the so-called “Golden Age” of capitalism and the singer’s musical vocabulary. Although Eilish references vocalists of the 1950s/60s as influences—Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Julie London—it is ultimately via breath that she most actively engages with the past. Singing in a whispered, airy tone, I consider the role of breath in recalling a time when unbounded economic growth coincided with social and political stability. As a musical resource, breath puts into play a constellation of figures associated economic growth: resource abundance and scarcity, exhaustion and recovery. In a close reading of their award-winning song “What Was I Made For?”, I show how Eilish enlists vocal and studio technique to figure breath as infinite, fabricating a musical world in which resources don’t run out. Ultimately, I argue that cultivating a vocal style that aims at un-bounding breath presents the post-war era of limitless economic growth as a solution to living in a world of stagnating growth.

Kelly Hoppenjans, “‘A Self-Replicating Pop Star?’ Grimes AI and Voicing Humanity”

In the past two years, AI voice clones have advanced rapidly, sparking controversy in pop music circles. These programs, trained on recordings of a particular singer’s voice, allow users to create new vocal tracks emulating that singer’s unique sound so convincingly that listeners struggle to differentiate between them. Enigmatic dark pop artist Grimes has enthusiastically embraced voice simulation technology, developing an AI double of her voice and inviting anyone to use it. She is optimistic that “creatively… AI can replace humans” and describes herself as a “self-replicating AI popstar.” Yet, currently, humans remain essential to this and all other AI projects, as Grimes’s “self-replication” would be impossible without the singers who transform their voices into Grimes, lending their timbres, bodies, and stylistic gestures to the assembled AI voice.

This paper explores Grimes AI from the perspective of singers who transform their voices to highlight the humans behind the AI. I asked singers who had never used it to sing through it with me, interviewed producers and artists who have created songs using Grimes AI, and experimented with my own voice through the clone. As much as singers encounter bizarre, almost totalizing transformations of their voice, they often also detect ways in which their voices are still present, resulting in a vocal hybrid that is a blend of the singer, Grimes, and the technology itself. As they negotiate these multiple identities, they experience ways in which their selves have been erased or displaced by the technology as well as moments where vestiges of their embodied sound and vocal style are still audible in the voice clone’s assemblage. As AI grows more ever-present in society, their perspectives help us understand how we can reckon with our selves, our voices, and our bodies through and despite this technology.

As a performer of 6 years in NYC’s KiKi Scene, I've witnessed & studied first hand the technical
production of black trans woman deejays, commentators, and musicians. Inspired by and invested in
honoring their artistic labor, I launched my own musical career in 2016.

As Queen Green on da Mf Beat, my music is an eclectic soundscape that draws on elements of the vogue
fem genre and samples from 80s & 90s Ballroom classic club hits. My sonic signature is a reformulation of
the voices of the Scene’s iconic transwomen , e.g. Octavia Saint Laurent, Sexy Lexy, Dominique Jackson,
Samantha “Cookie Tookie.” My rap performance, accompanied by their dialogue, highlights my narrative as a
black trans girl who came-of-age in Ballroom and the South Bronx. I also honor my Nuyorican heritage,
often layering vogue fem samples with percussive rhythms from reggaeton & dembow. My music grants me a
praxis of resistance and a site for scholarly inquiry, empowering me in the face of quotidian transphobic
violence, both within and outside of academia.

For Pop Con 2025, I propose to conduct a live production of a vogue fem beat on Logic Pro X
while I discuss the mechanics of Fem Queen Performance as an embodiment of the soundscape. As both
voguer and producer, I showcase my creative process that weaves vogue fem’s sonic elements and patterns,
which I and my fellow Ballroom sisters intuitively respond to in our movement. Some of these elements
include: catchy 4-count kick rhythms, glass-like “Ha” crashes, vocal samples that function as instruments,
upbeat tempos, and silences in the beat that allow for vogue movement. I intend to contextualize these
samples in the evolution of Ballroom’s music history. I’ll explain where these sounds derive from, how
Ballroom producers manipulate them delicately and meticulously, as I spotlight my own unique process of
generating arrangements through Logic’s sophisticated technologies (like the step sequencer, quick sampler,
EQ’ing, plug-ins). I also name and honor trans women deejays at the helm of producing and popularizing this
sound.

Theoretically, I frame my performance around the essence of cunt— a Ballroom colloquialism for the
vernacular of movement that Fem Queens exhibit during FemQueen Performance. In the words of Icon
Sinia Ebony, cunt essence is all about “oozing and flouncing your femininity” through your vogue. This black-
trans-womanly–embodiment inhabits vogue fem music via a series of movement strategies, some of which
include: “sticking-and-landing” handwork—playing with the tension of fluid and fixed motion in one’s
performance in response to the beat pulses, or making “moments”—hiking up the drama in one’s vogue in
response to the rising action of the beat so as to reach a climactic dip. Further, I ground cunt essence in La
Monte Young’s notion of “getting inside of a sound” and Elizabeth Freeman’s theory of erotohistoriography.
Young describes “getting inside of” and “surrendering” himself to sounds within the classical compositions
he produces to invigorate his audiences, while Freeman’s erotohistoriography proposes queer bodily pleasure as a
tool to “effect, figure, and perform” history in the present (Freeman, 95). I pair these two theoretical models
to demonstrate how vogue fem, via sonic production and embodied performance, is a praxis which keeps me
tethered to Ballroom's trans herstory in the present. I conclude the presentation by performing vogue fem to
my own production.

Moderator: Kimberly Mack, University of Illinois

Marcus Clayton, “On the Big White Screen: Interrogating Punk Fashion as a Millennial Black Punk”

The mainstream view of punk fashion is incredibly white and predicated on the idea that the
punk ethos means voluntary abnormality by white suburban youth. In truth, fashion is a symptom
of punk and not requirement. Instead, punk’s foundation is a search for individuality despite
societal norms and a retention of community despite attempted extinction by authority figures
and gatekeepers – ideologies closer to how punks of color see the genre’s mission. The whiteness
of punk, upon even closer inspection, thrives on fashioning the historical usurpation of Black
style, art, and music into a kitsch for white youths who are simply bored of suburban life; styles
that stemmed from Black and brown DIY culture and protest music. This idea is exemplified by
the conversation between Norman Mailer and James Baldwin on “the white negro,” and further
amplified by the punk song “Guilty of Being White” by Minor Threat, whose lead singer I had a
personal disagreement with on the song and how one interprets racialization – blackness in
countercultural communities becomes a costume for white folk that can be taken off when the
going gets tough. In continuing the visceral argumentation of this personal interaction, I offer
this paper though narrative: an exploration of a biracial millennial’s interpretation of punk
fashion, how it feeds into representation and execution in contemporary society, how whiteness
in countercultural movements hinder POC aesthetics. Exploring this narrative through my
personal viewings of the film SLC Punk!, Bad Brain’s Live at CBGB’s 1982 DVD, and through
the 1990 independent film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I wish to deconstruct the “fashion” of
punk, revealing aesthetics that do no celebrate culture and community, rather steals from POC
activism for the sake of gatekeeping oppression within the musical genre.

Michael Yosef Jimenez, “Functions of Style: Constructing the Cloak in Black Hardcore Punk”

How does a music genre constructed by Black musicians in scenes later reimagined to be
inherently white treat and construct the cover of its Blackness? How has the style of such a genre
reconciled with its unique position—faced unavoidably against the popular Black fashions of its
time while simultaneously being forced against the styles of a surrounding white background?
How does it create, through an alteration of style, clothing, and materials, its own cloak to further
its purposes? Black hardcore punk, as traced throughout early punk history in the outlines of
Bad Brains, X-Ray Spex, and Pure Hell, is in the tradition of constant sonic cloaking: amplifying
a sound which is simultaneously deafening and unmissable and, yet, constructed to be
completely unintelligible to many failing to understand it. Living here, on the borders of the
intelligibility of sound and noise, it finds proliferation and sustenance, creating an archive of its
own style which seems to understand what music critic and theorist Daphne Brooks describes as
the ability of archives to stand “in for and as the memory of a people.” In its own visual
appearance, Black hardcore punk performs something unique: its style allows it the privilege to
concurrently blend in, stand out, and recall its own memories of Black stylistic tradition. For
what exact purpose do these proliferators of early Black hardcore punk transform, repurpose, and
reuse the styles of their time? How can Bad Brains’ rastafarian aesthetic, Poly Styrene’s
checkered dresses and fur coats, and Kenny Gordon’s boots “made for walking,” repurposed
from that of Nancy Sinatra, all aid in the construction of this cloak? Why, as Pierce Jordan of
modern Black hardcore band Soul Glo has noted, isn’t there “anybody who’s Black in a punk
band with gold teeth”?

Jordan Brown, “Aesthetics of the Underground: Sapphic Blackness, Posthumanism, and Alternative Culture”

This paper investigates the sonic mapping of Black queer femme underground spaces. I
will use house shows as a case study encompassing Black music and underground politics.
Whether it be DJ Kool Herc’s Bronx house show that birthed hip-hop, the notorious basement
shows of the punk scene, or the late-night disc jockeying of house music, the house show
connects the musical with the political to create an informal community of like-minded people
(Kittler). I propose that the aesthetic regime of the house show, based in underground political
activism and grassroots movement, operates as a posthumanist-political intervention
temporarily absolving its attendees of the hegemonic structures of the “above-world”
(Rancière; Ortiz). As such, the house show curates a safe space for Black queer-femmeness by
relieving the intersectional weight of oppressive colonial structures from their shoulders
(Foucault). Capturing the true essence of this community can be an elusive endeavor, as the
oppressive capitalist forces that have overtaken LGBTQ spaces at the turn of the twenty-first
century have replaced the spirit of queer grassroots organizing with persuasive marketing that
conflates the consumption of queer merchandising with true “acceptance” (Adeyemi). Using
writings from Matthew D. Morrison’s Blacksound (2024), Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg
Manifesto (1984), and W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903), and music from
Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer (2018), I describe how the usage of aesthetic and sonic
opacity has safeguarded the Black queer femme community from Western hegemony. Under
the guise of Jean Bernabé et. al.'s Creolité, I will prove that the house show is an environment
evocative of the true anti nature of both the punk and Black communities. Forming an
underground railroad of sorts, Black alternative music brings coded Black queer femmeness to
the fore, masking its true intentions to outsiders and revealing its secrets to those who desire it.

From lowrider oldies to rancholo rancheras the soundscapes and styles of Los
Angeles and the Southwest United States have changed with the times and
trends. This gathering of Mexican Regional Music participant scholars will share
research and reflections on paisa and MeXican migrant sensibilities and
aesthetics informed by urban and rural realities in the United States and Mexico.
With Mexican regional music and its over a dozen subgenres breaking records and at
the top of the charts, it is a crucial time and topic to discuss the influence of music on
the clothing, styles, and lifestyle of this bicultural and binational community.
Mexican American and Chicanx subversive youth cultures are instrumental in
shaping cultural trends and politics. Their sound and style detail themes of
immigration, economics, and violence, and tell stories of Mexican heritage, life,
and love. As we witness the globalization of these new and remixed rolas (tracks),
important discussions remain around how gender, class, race, sexuality, and other
positionalities influence representation across geographies and genres– often
blurring borders and crossing lines to impact the consumption and production of
this musical, aesthetic, fashion and overall cultural movement.

This experimental roundtable consisting of Bryan Cantero, Felicia Montes and
Lucero Saldaña will focus on the paisa (Mexican migrant) aesthetics in Mexican
regional music genres such as banda, corridos, norteñas, sierreno, corrido
tumbados, belicos and more. These long-time Paisa participant scholars, artists,
dancers, and fans of this musical culture will gather in a communal conversation
and visual and sonic listening session to show the sounds, steps, and styles
connected to the music. We will discuss the gender and style dynamics that have
birthed brands, trends, and viral sensations across, ranches, rodeos, radio
stations, streets, and social media. A special focus will be on current key artists,
bands, influencers, and designers who are making waves. Caile al baile! (join the
dance)

Moderator: Karlyn King

Emily Lordi, “Homegirl Diva: Whitney Houston's Late 90s”

In 1998, against the odds of her dazzling star image and supposedly advanced age of 35,
Whitney Houston revamped her look and sound on My Love is Your Love, an album of songs
about betrayal and fortitude that initiated her turn toward a new bent-but-not-broken
brand of hip-hop-inflected R&B. That record also established a 90s template for women
artists who would use their personal conflicts to craft edgier, more philosophical personae
(see Mariah’s Emancipation of Mimi, Beyonce’s Lemonade, Taylor’s Reputation). In response
to tabloid accounts of her drug use and the general foolishness of her husband Bobby
Brown, Whitney refashioned herself as a homegirl diva, a wounded warrior who looked
fresher than ever and could still sing her ass off. Hence, the critic Barry Walters, who
profiled her for OUT magazine in 1999—her first story for a gay publication—predicted
that My Love and its club remixes might accomplish what Whitney’s platinum record sales
and Bodyguard world domination hadn’t yet: “She may finally become hip.”
This paper explains how Whitney’s late-90s transformation was facilitated by a new
generation of artists: Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Missy Elliott, Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill
all wrote and produced songs for My Love. Whitney had entered a feedback loop of cultural
influence—working with artists who had grown up idolizing her, but whose immersion in
hip hop helped her develop a new form of diva realness though which she reached and re-
energized fanbases of Black women and gay men. Though she never embraced hip-hop’s
masculinist style (baggy jeans and jerseys for women), she did exchange her gowns for
cigarette pants and camisoles; and her full 80s hair for a sleek cinnamon bob. And because
she at last appeared to be voicing her own well-publicized struggles in song—both through
her deeper voice and though a new form of R&B that combed through the details of
romantic strife—her new music spoke to more than for her constituencies, repping them
more as a queen than a princess.

Johann Pibert, “The Transformative Power of Fashion in Madonna and Her Autobiographical 
Celebration Tour from a Concert-Psychological Perspective”

It is almost impossible to express Madonna’s influence on the fashion world without resorting
to exaggeration. The singer’s biographer Mary Gabriel writes, for example: “By 2002,
Madonna was fashion. Everything she wore became a trend; every designer she worked with
became a star; every fashion show she attended became a media event.” 1 Two decades later,
with the Celebration Tour, Madonna presents her autobiography in concert form, which
Vogue journalist Christian Allaire describes as follows: “Almost better than the setlist,
however, was the Queen of Pop’s epic new outfits for the stage—well, new in a sense. All of
them riff off of her most iconic looks over the years (including, yes, that signature Jean Paul
Gaultier cone bra).” 2 The rebellious cone bra that Madonna introduced in 1990 during the
Blond Ambition Tour was able to define the female body as a self-determined agent, which
some perceived as defiant or even aggressive. 3 Madonna’s social criticism she often conveys
through her outfits has made her a global icon for fans and the object of investigation for
academics in a field of its own: the Madonna studies.

Based on the Celebration Tour, this paper aims to reveal the influence of Madonna’s fashion
on her fans from a concert-psychological perspective. Affective concert psychology is an
emerging transdisciplinary paradigm that posits a precedence of affective phenomena over
cognitive ones and intertwines social sciences with humanities. Methodologically, participant
observation and fan surveys are enriched with insights from Madonna studies. The results
show how important Madonna’s transformative, sometimes rebellious use of fashion has been
in shaping people’s identities worldwide.

Hannah Rosa Schiller, “Madonna’s (Mis)matching of Sonic and Visual Age Markers as 
Chrononormative Disruption”

“Do not age. Because to age is a sin. You will be criticized and vilified and definitely not played
on the radio.” Madonna has faced relentless age-related criticism throughout her multi-decade
career. In popular culture, policing women's age is a proxy for enforcing heteronormative
systems more broadly (Lemish and Muhlbauer 2012). This paper considers the relationship
between sonic and visual markers of age across Madonna’s career to interrogate the assumption
that there is something inherently youthful about pop as a genre of music and performance, and
that it is shameful or desperate for anyone not biologically young to try to engage. Through
analysis of Madonna's recorded vocal performance and production techniques across time in
parallel with public discourse regarding her evolving visual aesthetics, I argue that pop music
affords disruptions of chrononormativity through its potential for mismatches between sonic and
visual markers of age.

While existing literature has explored Madonna's aging with a primary focus on her appearance
and her displays of sexuality, this paper offers a new perspective by centering her voice and
musical style. First, by analyzing the sound and production of Madonna's recorded voice
throughout her first two albums, Madonna (1983) and Like A Virgin (1984), in conjunction with
her early visual brand, I argue that pop music is always already a performance of youth. Bearing
this in mind, I then analyze the production of Madonna's voice on her 2015 album Rebel Heart
(2015) alongside recent discourse regarding Madonna’s cosmetic enhancements to illustrate how
Madonna continues to perform youth while simultaneously leaving what I describe as “age
residue.” I end with a discussion of how these examples of (mis)matching visual and sonic
markers of age disrupt chrononormative expectations, and raise further questions about what pop
music is and what it could be.

Andrea Hu, “K-pop Divas: Late 2000s/Early 2010s Girl Groups, Empowerment, and Femininity”

When most people think of pop, their minds go straight to pop queen princess Britney Spears or Lady
Gaga, but in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the genre of K-pop produced styles, music, and fashion that
was an amalgamation of many different sources. It offered empowerment and rebellion—especially for
young girls and women.

Unlike the 5th generation of K-pop today, girl groups of the late 2000s and early 2010s were what we
could now consider as divas. Through their style, music video, lyrics, fashion, and dance, they were
unapologetic about their sexuality, existence, confidence, and how their body is in space. This was also a
time when the girls were debuting older and weren’t being marketed to sell youth. Women in South Korea
were and still are viewed under a conservative lens that follow binary gender roles, and the girl groups of
that time offered an alternative way of being outside of traditional, patriarchal expectations .

For this presentation, I’m particularly interested in looking into how K-pop girl groups of the late
2000s and early 2010s explored empowerment, sexuality, and gender through style, fashion, and music
under a conservative society. I’m curious if the girl groups have had any societal and or personal impact
when they were still actively promoting. On the flip side, were the groups viewed as simply selling lust and
sex? What does confidence/sexual confidence look like then and how does it look now specifically in
South Korean society? These questions beg me to look further into why the past girl groups’ music, style,
and fashion are practically nonexistent today. Mos

Moderator: Andrew Mall, Northeastern University

Abigail Byrd Glidewell, “Aesthetics, Semiotics, and Prophetic Revelations 
in Christian Nationalist Music”

Christians have long been influential in American culture and politics, with 63 percent of
Americans identifying as Christians and about a quarter of Americans identifying as
evangelicals in 2022. Often associated with right-wing and Christian nationalist movements,
evangelicals are a powerful and serially misunderstood demographic. Characteristics of this
group include an emphasis on experiencing a personal conversion to the faith (being “born
again”), associations with Protestant and Pentecostal denominations, and an emphasis on
following the teachings of Jesus in one’s personal life and encouraging others to do the same.
Christian nationalists extend the public sharing of their faith into the political sphere, seeking
to enshrine their standards of Christian morality in the U.S. government. In the past fifty years,
however, a new fringe group of nondenominational Christians, complete with its own
leadership structures and ideologies, has risen to the forefront of the Christian right.
In this paper I will uncover the unique theological, political, and aesthetic tenets of the
New Apostolic Reformation movement and its implications for popular music and politics.
Through vague symbolism and metaphor that can refer to either orthodox Christian doctrine or
the movement’s many “prophetic memes” (as coined by Matthew D. Taylor), the NAR and their
independent charismatic base creates pathways to extremist and nationalist rhetoric for
Christians of all kinds. Through examples from “The Chosen One” by Natasha Owens, “God
Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood, and worship songs from a nationalist church service, I
demonstrate through Perciean semiotics how independent charismatics write and rewrite
religious narratives for political gain. Invoking transcendent experiences and the voice of God,
religious leaders mobilize their followers into spiritual armies to fight the demons and
politicians that keep our nation from its destiny.

Dishanka Gogoi, “Farmers on the Stage: Fashion Statement as Rebellion and Ethnic Solidarity
in Live Shows of Cultivators, an Assamese Folk-Pop Band”

This paper is an outcome of attending a live performance of Assamese language folk-pop band
called “Cultivators” 1 in a Bihu Function (an annual Assamese new year celebration concert in
Assam) during my PhD dissertation research ethnography last year in Guwahati, Assam, India.
In the Bihu Function, Cultivators were the headliner. Like most of artists in pop music scene in
the world, Assamese popular musicians have been experimenting with their fashion statement to
construct a distinct brand value among fans and in larger popular music scene of India nationally
as well as in regional music scene. In a night of arrival spring season, the band members of
Cultivators embarked on to the stage with wearing traditional attire of Bodo (one of the largest
indigenous ethnolinguistic communities of Assam), an Aronai, a Bodo traditional weaved
muffler in their necks and Gamsa, a Bodo traditional weaved wrapper in their waist. The bihu
fuction was organized by a collective of Bodo organization in a Bodo dominated locality. This
paper wants to explore how Aronai and Gamsa as a fashion statement in the concert, Cultivators
have constructed a ethnic solidarity with the Bodo audience and how it had created an identity
assertion of Bodo on the larger regional politics of Assam. Along with that, from the vantage
point of Aronai and Gamsa, how the fashion style is engaging and reflecting the inherent
ideology of the band Cultivators collectively and how it is percolating through individual band
members counter ideological viewpoints. The paper will provide a thick description of the
performance of the band and reaction of the audience to offer the politics and poetics of identity
assertion of socio-culturally oppressed, representation and rebellion through traditional attire as
fashion statement or style in a regional pop music scene.

Matt Jones, “Joni Mitchell's Complaint”
This paper examines the politicization of Joni Mitchell, especially in her work from 1985
to 2007. Mitchell rose to prominence in the 1970s with an extraordinary run of albums
that defined the introspective singer-songwriter—a genre whose austere style conveys
authenticity and self-probing sincerity. However, Mitchell’s work also has a political side.
Occasional songs address political themes. “The Fiddle and the Drum” (1969) is an anti-war
chant while “Big Yellow Taxi”(1970) expresses a proto-ecofeminist sensibility. The Hissing of
Summer Lawns (1975) offers a scathing, Didionesque essay of midcentury Los Angeles.

From 1985, Mitchell’s work became overtly political. Dog Eat Dog (1985) is often looked
upon as her nadir. Critics have described it as an “angry” album, largely because of its
themes: environmental destruction, the threat of annihilation, materialism, the rise of a
politicized form of evangelical Christianity, and alienation. Moreover, Mitchell’s use of
synthesizers, drum machines, distorted guitars, and changes in her voice startled critics
and fans. I argue that Mitchell utilized this bold new aesthetic as a form of musical-
social critique to support her critiques of life in Ronald Reagan’s America. Her ironic
inversion of the sounds of 1980s New Wave, synth pop, and rock invites throws the
contradictions of the 1980s into stark relief.

Finally, this paper asks what it means to listen again to Dog Eat Dog in Donald Trump’s
America, when the aesthetics of 1980s synth pop again dominate the charts and the
United States seems to be making a return to trickle-down economics, Christian
fundamentalism, environmental crisis, racial unrest, state sanctioned violence, and
assaults on women’s bodily autonomy. What can we learn from Mitchell’s complaint, a
term I borrow from Lauren Berlant’s work on female public cultures and citizenship, in
the political climate of 2024?

Laura Etemah, “Sartorial Politics: From Fela’s Afrobeat to Contemporary Afrobeats”

Drawing from political philosophy and cultural studies, this study explores sartorial politics
within the Nigerian musical scene, linking its development from the afrobeat era of Fela
Anikulapo Kuti to the afrobeats movement of contemporary times, spearheaded by artists
such as Burna Boy and Flavour, among others. Fashion, as a vital ingredient in the visual
aesthetics of African music performance culture, has over time evolved into an influential
vehicle of self-expression, power and rebellion. Fela’s decolonial aesthetics compared with
the styles of the afrobeats music stars of today highlight the aims of this research, which is to
interrogate the transformation and continuity of sartorial politics as a cultural phenomenon.
Fela’s valiant sartorial preferences, rooted in Pan-Africanism and rebellion against colonial
and post-colonial authority, embodied his revolutionary perspective, using attire as a visual
statement of resistance. To challenge Eurocentric norms and emphasize cultural identity,
Fela’s choice of performance apparel featured traditional elements in conjunction with
provocatively decked modern-tailored outfit. Conversely, contemporary artists such as Burna
Boy and Flavour utilize their clothing styles as tools for self-expression and empowerment,
combining African heritage with cosmopolitan standards. This cultural fusion indicates a
switch in narrative from outright resistance to the celebration of African identity at a global
level. Through a critical analysis of music videos, social media commentary, and interviews,
this qualitative study explores how sartorial politics continual

Both the state and rap fans have policed forms of masculine embodiment in hip-hop culture for
being criminal (Miles 2020), queer (Penney 2012),or otherwise non-normative (Smalls 2022). In
contrast, this panel examines how people have used the unruliness of hip-hop style to express
belonging, identity, and community. Two papers explore how Black people constitute a
community through unique hairstyling practices, from the hair waves that serve as a metaphor
for the expansiveness of Black community (Corey Miles) to the carework of giving haircuts
within hip-hop crews (Antonia Randolph). Another paper shows how Prince forged an uneasy
alliance with gangsta rap through his style during his Glam Slam era (Elliott Powell). A final
paper criticizes the state for criminalizing Young Thug’s style during his RICO trial, rather than
understanding his crew’s distinctive mode of embodiment as an expression of shared
tenderness (Will Mosley). Taken together, these papers show that Black male rappers’ style
communicates their unique position and desires as people who are simultaneously marginalized
within the dominant culture and exalted within hip-hop culture (Randolph 2006).

INDIVIDUAL ABSTRACTS

Cuts that Bind: Haircuts as Carework in Hip-Hop Crews
Antonia Randolph, antonia.randolph@unc.edu

Jonathon M. Hess Term Assistant Professor
Department of American Studies
University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill

Straight Black men use their personal style, such as their grooming and adornment, to express
desirable masculinity despite being marginalized within dominant culture (Randolph 2006).
Building on that insight, I examine the meaning of shared haircuts within crews, or groups of
three more friends, within hip-hop culture. While the Black barbershop has been studied as a
site of Black male bonding, not enough research has examined the meaning of friends cutting
each other’s hair or paying for a friend’s haircut (Wright 1998). I examine two scenes of shared
barbering in hip-hop culture to argue that the practice is a form of care work and an expression
of caring masculinities (Elliott 2015). In one scene, the members the Wu-Tang Clan pay for the
haircut for rapper Cappadonna who joined the 10 member rap group on tour after being
released from prison (Jenkins 2019). The members’ communal investment in Cappadonna’s
grooming is care that recognizes his humanity after prison’s dehumanization and establishes his
identity as a crew member, not just a carceral citizen (Burton 2021; Miller and Stuart 2017). In
the other example, a photograph shows a shirtless Scoop Lover, a dancer for 1980s rap star Big
Daddy Kane, freshening up Kane’s signature high-top fade haircut before a show (Tobak 2018).
The intimacy of the haircut and the high-top fade hairstyle that Kane shares with his two
dancers is care work that re-enforces the bond among the crew members. Both scenes show
the production of group belonging through acts of physical care among men.

Waves: Black Hair, Hands, and Hearing as Placemaking in the Uninhabitable
Corey J. Miles; cmiles6@tulane.edu

Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Africana Studies Program
Tulane University

What does it mean to forge home in a place that is violent and will soon no longer be
inhabitable? This project journeys up and down the U.S. South through Black coastal cities,
specifically to Beaufort South Carolina and New Orleans Louisiana, to capture Black
experiences with hurricanes, policing, and environmental erosion. Through ethnography it looks
at the silent, disquiet, and creative movements of everyday life to hear, feel, and see the small
ways Black southerners survive these multiple registers of disaster in community. No matter
how good young people are at avoiding police contact, they still choke on air that smells like a
paper mill while waiting for their neighborhood to inevitably be underwater. Thinking alongside
southern coastal music artists, barbers, and storytellers, this work theorizes the many ways that
waves allow coastal Black southerners to stay afloat. The way that Black people wave at each
other when they are the only Black people in a space, create sonic waves, move with waves in
their walk, and gel waves into their hair all serve as a frame to make sense of the relational
ways southern Black people gesture towards glimpses of freedom in the face of black death. To
be of and from a place is less about the avoidance of violence, but rather about the beautiful
and creative ways people stay afloat and drown together. It is in the style of living and dying.

Gangster Glam: Prince, Hip Hop, and Black Queer Masculinity
Elliott H. Powell

Associate Professor
Department of American Studies
University of Minnesota

Scholarship on multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger, singer-songwriter Prince has long
explored the ways his music and sartorial styling transgressed norms of gender and sexuality.
From his high heels to his falsetto to his gender nonconforming alter-ego Camille to his makeup
to play with pronouns, Prince reveled in the musical and visual aesthetics of impropriety. Yet,
both in popular imagination as well as academic discourse, much of these Black queer
representations and performances of Prince are situated within his 1980s heyday or his 2000s
popular resurgence. This paper is, instead, invested in the Prince (and artist formerly known as
Prince) of the 1990s. This is a period wherein Prince incorporated more hip hop music and style
into his artistry, selectively appropriating elements of gangsta rap. Thus, this paper asks: in what
ways does Prince’s queer subversion of norms complement and/or compete with the assumed
rigid (if not toxic) formations of gangsta rap of the 1990s? In what ways might gangsta rap
provide Prince a space to further pursue transgressive performance practices? Through a study
of songs and music videos, this paper explores the “gangster glam” era of Prince to illustrate not
only how Prince disidentified with (in the Muñozian sense) the racialized gender formations of
glamor and the gangsta/gangster, but also how such disidentificatory practices provide new
ways for us, as popular music studies scholars, to conceive of the gangsta rap period.

Songs for RICO: Young Thug and the Case against Black Queer Expression
Will Mosley

Assistant Professor
Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
University of Maryland, College Park

When the District Attorney of Fulton County (DA) Fani Willis charges members of the alleged
street gang “Young Slime Life” (YSL), she included Grammy-award winning rapper Jeffery
Williams, aka Young Thug, aka Slime (Thug), with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Across the fifty-six count grand jury
indictment, crimes spanning armed robbery, drug dealing, and murder are corroborated by the
DA’s application of the “overt act,” a feature unique to RICO cases in which non-evidence can
be leveraged against defendants anyway. No longer just enigmatic lyricism, irreverent music
videos, and the provocative Instagram posts of a successful rapper, whose content is
celebrated by fans. No, under the RICO Act, social media posts and music have been
decontextualized to now “constitute acts of racketeering activity” (13). Other scholars have
documented rap music’s history of political scrutiny, in which studies rap becomes a site of
resistance, possibility, freedom of expression, and any charge of deviance is a misreading of
Black art as such. In this paper, I trouble the impulse to recuperate trap culture, to make deviant
Black seem less problematic, to defang it if you will. I do so in order to appreciate trap music as
an

Cowboy hats, boots, and jeans are just a few clichéd garments associated with country music. It’s
a genre whose many styles act as a key part of its identity and performance. Fashion is also a site
where country’s borders are both extended and suppressed. This panel will consider the
influences behind country music’s style and how these fashions have offered inclusive and
exclusive sites of contestation. We consider topics such as the rise of the hunter/fisherman
masculine ideal as performed by artists like Riley Green and Luke Combs, the strict style
boundaries of race and gender played out on the Grand Ole Opry stage, the Mexican origins of
“American” western wear, and what evolving headwear says about country music’s changing
class politics. We consider how country music’s many fashions act not simply as superficial
attire but as key sites where the genre’s shifting race, gender, class, and power politics are
continuously constructed and performed.

INDIVIDUAL ABSTRACTS 

“Huntin’, Fishin’, and Lovin’ Every Day”: Country Music’s Evolving Masculine Ideal
Will Groff

In 2015, Luke Bryan released “Huntin’, Fishin’ and Lovin’ Every Day,” a twangy ode to his
favorite outdoor leisure activities. In the first verse, Bryan waxes poetic about the pleasures of
being in the woods, singing about being “high on a hill” and “never worry[ing] about the price of
gas.” The music video plays out like a Bass Pro Shops ad, with shots of Bryan sporting various
outdoorsy outfits while partaking in the titular activities.
The song and its video are emblematic of country music’s increasing preoccupation with outdoor
recreation and the central role of the outdoorsman image in reshaping the genre’s ever-evolving
masculine ideal. While the flamboyant Nudie Suits and pearl snap shirts of yore haven’t
disappeared, today’s male country stars often adopt a more casual, “everyman” aesthetic. This
shift mirrors broader trends in the fashion world, where workwear and outdoor apparel have
become prominent in streetwear culture and high-fashion collections.
Accordingly, country’s embrace of outdoor recreation has presented its stars with opportunities
for brand collaborations and marketing opportunities. For example, look no further than Luke
Combs’s Columbia PFG (Performance Fishing Gear) shirts, on sale at his website for a cool $75,
or “duckman” Riley Green’s Real Tree Camo collab.
This paper examines how male country stars are using outdoor apparel to perform masculinity
and curate an “authentic” country image. It places the outdoorsman in a lineage of masculine
country personas, from Jimmie Rodgers’s “Singing Brakeman” to the singing cowboy image that
dominated the genre’s imagination starting in the 1930s. This outdoorsman costume allows
today’s country singers to remain relatable to their audiences by projecting a rugged and vaguely
working-class masculine ideal, even as they push a consumerist fantasy of aspirational living and
turn a profit in the process.

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Mexican Origins of Country Music’s “American” Style
Nadine Hubbs

What do corrido, norteño, Tejano, Duranguense, banda, and country music have in common?
They share the hats, boots, western shirts, belts, and buckles that serve as rugged workwear for
the cowboy and have long influenced daily dress for the rest of us. It’s a style recognized the
world over as iconically American, by association with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show,
twentieth-century Hollywood westerns and singing cowboys, and country music stars up to
today. But in fact, it’s a style that started out definitively Mexican and remains so, as ropa
vaquera (cowboy kit) and, in regional music genres, the look of Mexican sound.

Another mainstay of country music style is the Nudie suit. Named for the Ukrainian immigrant
tailor Nudie Cohn, the spangly, embroidered ensemble could well be called the Cuevas suit,
given the importance of Manuel Cuevas’s contributions to the genre. Before moving to the
United States and working as Cohn’s assistant, Cuevas learned his trade as a tailor and clothing
designer in Mexico. There, the postwar Nudie suit appears as kin to the traje de charro/a
(equestrian suit). With roots in the sixteenth century, the elegant, embroidered regalia of the
genteel horseman and horsewoman became a nineteenth-century symbol of Mexican
independence and later, the costume of mariachi and ranchera musicians.

In research for my book project Border Country: Mexico, America, and Country Music, Mexican
American country fans spoke appreciatively on the Mexican aspects of country musical style.
But in mainstream U.S. perspective, country’s Mexican dimensions go unrecognized.
Spotlighting the visual and sartorial, I will argue that some of the attributes of country music
regarded as most iconically American are actually Mexican. And I’ll consider the implications of
such misrecognition for country music’s claims to quintessential Americanness and for social,
and cultural, justice.

“My Own Kind of Hat”: Headwear and Country Music’s Evolving Class Politics
Amanda Marie Martinez

From cowboy hats to ball caps, headwear has always been central to country music’s fashion.
Hats have also symbolized the genre’s evolving class politics, especially when it’s come to
performances of masculinity. When country music was first invented as a marketing category in
the 1920s, it was called “hillbilly” music and was associated with stereotyped, rural southern
attire akin to overalls and a straw hat. In following decades, as the singing cowboy took over
popular culture amid the Great Depression and World War II, country singers gravitated to the
cowboy hat. Not only was this in tune with trends of that era, it also helped the genre battle
classist discriminations that it experienced due to its associations with a white, rural, and
southern demographic. The cowboy was much more respectable than the hillbilly. By the 1960s,
cowboy hats fell out of fashion, especially as bedazzled Nudie suits emerged as the ultimate
marker of country music’s authenticity during that period. By the late 1970s, the cowboy hat
returned—this time in a feathered, straw version as the Urban Cowboy craze dominated popular
culture. In rece